“The Ghost Army’s” idea of deception seems like a quaint and delightfully absurd notion compared with the many deceptions involved in today’s war on terror. (Concurrent to the making of the documentary, an exhibition of the soldiers’ artworks has made its way to several museums.) Their contributions to winning the war were kept classified for four decades. To keep themselves entertained, they kept private sketchbooks of war’s everyday horrors, destruction, banality and companionship. Made up of artists, designers, set builders, sound engineers and other creative types, this ghost army successfully confused the enemy - and seemed to have a wonderful time doing it, even if their work was intended to draw fire upon themselves in order to give an edge to Allied troops.Īhead of and alongside the D-Day invasion, the ghost army traveled with instruments of trickery and outdoor stagecraft, including elaborate recordings that mimicked pontoon-bridge construction and tank movements. In this case, we are talking about the 1,100 or so G.I.s who served in the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, a “field deception unit” entrusted in the summer of 1944 with creating the illusion of advancing tanks and troops across Europe, designed to fool the Germans. “You started it,” Reiner told him, “so don’t complain.” Reiner chuckles at how his friend Mel will sometimes get upset when he sees something he thinks is too vulgar or over-the-line in today’s comedies - umbrage from the man who brought us the campfire flatulence scene in 1974’s “Blazing Saddles.” For every illuminating anecdote, viewers will have to sit patiently through moments of what has to be television’s most agonizing documentary genre: Comedians talking about the mechanics of comedy. Gene Wilder, Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, Nathan Lane and others help dissect the way Brooks works and what he’s like in private. “Mel Brooks: Make a Noise” is worthwhile for its romp through his groundbreaking comedy films, starting with “The Producers” and then on to the highs ( “Young Frankenstein”) and a tender treatment of the lows ( “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”). In any event, his best fighting occurred on other fronts, breaking down fixed notions of comedy in Hollywood’s front offices. “I think I could’ve ended the war right then and there,” he says. When he finished, he swears, he heard polite applause coming from that direction. “It took a long time to make any kind of sense of ,” Brooks says.Īt an earlier point in the film, Brooks recalls the war itself and singing “Toot, toot Tootsie, goodbye!” at the top of his lungs during a pre-skirmish lull, knowing the Germans were just on the other side of a river. His answer? He first heard of Hitler sometime in the 1930s. (“Springtime for Hitler” in “The Producers” “Hitler on Ice” in “History of the World, Part I.”) Here you have a Brooklyn-born octogenarian who is a descendant of immigrant Jews and who became a World War II enlistee, and he is being asked about his earliest memory of the 20th century’s worst person, who, it would turn out, would become Brooks’s greatest target and punchline for repeated acts of satire. It’s actually a brilliant question, with an answer that contains the possibility for several dissertations on modern history. It took about 30 minutes to inflate a single tank, and the work was generally done at night so the Germans wouldn’t see it. “What a crazy question!” Brooks exclaims with real delight.Ī Ghost Army soldier stands next to a rubber M4 Sherman tank, 93 pounds fully inflated. “When did you first become aware of Hitler?” he asks.
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It isn’t too long before we’re skipping across his early comedy days with Sid Caesar and into his movie career, but then, at another point, Trachtenberg (who asks all the questions of his subject) circles back around to World War II. “Make a Noise” is only loosely concerned with chronology - although Brooks starts off with a boyhood memory of being taken to see Ethel Merman in “Anything Goes” on Broadway in 1934. A swerving limousine screeches to a stop in front of a waiting studio set, and the legend himself shuffles out, takes a seat and starts yammering. The good news is that the film, directed by Robert Trachtenberg, makes a fast and sure decision to waste nobody’s time, including Brooks’s. He is one of those comedy legends who can’t complain about lacking respect or accolades, which might make it difficult to find another 90 minutes to spend watching PBS’s appreciative retrospective, “Mel Brooks: Make a Noise,” airing Monday night on the “American Masters” series. Melvin James Kaminsky, known far and wide and forever as Mel Brooks, turns 87 next month.